Jellyfish
Bellybutton

THE REVIEW

The less flamboyant Queen / finding 20 Euros on the ground / dopamine / Danny Elfman and Tim Burton's "Willy Wonka" / cookie commercials / Freak attitude past its time.

Who can find me the common denominator?

Alright, alright, I won’t drag it out, you’ve probably figured it out yourselves, right?

The Jellyfish were peddlers of addictive yet completely legal pills, alchemized with unexpected skill in their first (...and second to last...) album.

"Bellybutton" is a bag of candies that you open and they fly out everywhere, a Power-Pop playing hide and seek, eager to be discovered, like the opener "The Man I Used To Be", a skewed "white blues" with an airy and instantly memorable refrain, based on a tension-release game that will happily accompany us through these 40 minutes.

The Stop & Go of the sly "That Is Why", an eighties delight that rubs against you like a cat, precedes the chimes and little choruses (Pa-Pa-Pa-Pa) of a "The King Is Half-Undressed" that has more faces than a die.

And here I take the opportunity to emphasize: in each of the 10 tracks something always happens. They are linear, yes, but no matter how predictably average, we will find at every listen THE DETAIL that escaped us earlier.

And this, needless to say, is quite gratifying.

Trumpet and a bridge touched by perfection are the distinctive features of the soft ballad "I Wanna Stay Home", while the bold Pop-Rock "She Still Loves Him" showcases the passionate tone (as much as someone with that crushed top-hat on their head can be) of singer Andy Sturmer, never over the top, despite the ample opportunities to stray...

Urgent, bouncy, and full of seemingly irreconcilable solutions at the end, "All I Want Is Everything" precedes in the lineup the carefree entertainment "Now She Knows She's Wrong".

By now, I ask you: "How many can afford the luxury of placing the three best pieces of their debut album at the end?"

Few, very few, I tell you.

"Bedspring Kiss" is an evocative and dynamic Bossa Nova that sways on a floor of mandolin, sitar, harmonica, and theremin.

Quite the mess, huh?

Listen to believe, just as you absolutely must open your ears wide for the amazing, irresistible chorus of the slightly syncopated and circense "Baby's Coming Back", a pop-song that if it doesn’t stir anything in you, then you have serious problems or you are as good as dead.

Rubbery bass lines, stellar guitars, and a bridge worthy of the best Elton John conclude in the name of "Calling Sarah" an album that maybe won’t change your life, but perhaps your day, yes.

Not bad at all...